Adapting and Helping Young Children Through The Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic is leaving a lot of families with young children feeling isolated.  The joyous time having a new baby and looking forward to making new parent friends in groups and classes will continue for the near future to be impossible.

How can we help?  We are running successful Zoom classes 3 times a week but we know it isn’t the same as the babies and children meeting up and getting the fun and stimulation from being around friends.

Lovely as the children are, it is also incredibly hard for new parents to be stuck at home and trying to entertain a small child all day without getting out and about.

However, the children are getting used to following instructions and taking part in our classes.  We were initially resistant to running Zoom classes as the social side of what we do and have being delivering for the last 19 years is important for the children’s development but we need to adapt.

Therefore, we will be running a free trial class for parents who have heard about our sessions and want to try for free what we do.  It will take a little while for the younger children to actively take part and parent or carer participation is essential to ensure they get the best out of the class.

By limiting the number of children in each class we can coax and encourage the children by name to ensure they are able to take part and develop their skills to follow tiny instructions but most importantly have some fun.

Positive behaviour management techniques are used by all our class leaders in our sessions.  We don’t expect children to take part perfectly or follow everything – it is a chance for them to learn though.

If you would like to try for free please email peggy@funtrain.co.uk – we will need you and your child’s name (and the names of any other older siblings).  This will enable us to greet your child at the beginning of the class and offer encouragement during the session.

We are also happy to arrange classes for nurseries and toddler groups to enable families who know each other to keep in touch and share a class together.

The children and see and greet their friends on screen before we start the class and say goodbye at the end of the session.

It isn’t a problem at all if they wonder off and find an interesting toy to play with during the session.  Its much easier in a hall to engage with a child but they do wonder off sometimes and explore the fire extinguishers in our real classes so it really isn’t an issue.

The sessions are suitable for babies around one right up to school age.  We have a lot of older siblings joining in at the moment with their younger brothers and sisters and they love the opportunity to dance along to familiar songs and have some fun.  It also gives us an opportunity to praise them too for helping their little brothers and sisters.

If you like what we do you can then sign up for three half hour classes for £10 but it is a free, no obligation trial.  We will run until the end of the normal school term in July and will reopen again in September.

The welfare and happiness of everyone in our classes is paramount.  We welcome all feedback to ensure we can continue to make every family’s experience of our classes the best we possibly can in these difficult times.

Peggy Heron – Founder of FunTrain classes. peggy@funtrain.co.uk